Dessau: A Bauhaus pilgrimage

Dessau is a "mecca for fans of modernist architecture", says Hans Kundnani in the Observer. This otherwise "nondescript" post-industrial city on the banks of the Elbe in eastern Germany was home to the Bauhaus - the design school that led the modern "revolution in concrete, steel and glass" in the 1920s.

Survivors of Nazi disapproval and Communist neglect, the iconic buildings it produced here have recently been restored. The

main school building, with its "vast glass curtain wall" and asymmetrical, colourful interior, was designed by its founder, Walter Gropius; for only €40 a night, you can stay in a student room.

The Masters' Houses, nearby, one of which was home to the painters Kandinsky and Klee, are exquisite little variations on it.

The Berlin-Dessau train costs €20 one way. Rooms at the Bauhaus cost €40 (00 49 340 6508 318; email: kaatz@bauhaus-dessau.de).